Tag: nobble

Every year, more and more people manage to pound out a project in time for the contest. This year, 10 people met the deadline, some by the skin of their teeth, but there were a lot of really sweet projects that deserve recognition. This article is a compilation of the remaining seven projects, so let’s take a look!

BocuD built a portable he dubbed “The Nintendo Swiitch” last year, but wasn’t able to finish it in time for the contest deadline. This year, BocuD paced himself better and was able to build a brand new portable from scratch. In between snapping NANDs and swooshing traces, the Swiitch 2.0 was completed before the end of the contest, and it’s a pretty nice portable. Built around a 5 inch screen, BocuD’s goal was to keep the portable as small and thin as possible, while still being comfortable.

The final product looks quite nice. Notable features include single port charge and play, controllable screen brightness, component video, and a final thickness of 21mm. Overall, it looks like a pretty professional device! More details can be seen in his worklog.

HackerBilly took us back to the 2000’s with his portable, dubbed “The Extra Thicc Boi”, built from a frankencased ZN-45 case. HackerBilly’s inspiration for this portable was his old pal ShockSlayer, who built a similar looking portable with a GameCube many years ago. What the portable lacks in traditional beauty, it makes up for in nostalgia. According to HackerBilly, the portable is quite comfortable and the perfect machine to play Luigi’s Mansion on the go.

Notable features include a massive battery pack and speakers powerful enough for a home sound system. Check out his video for a more in depth walk through of the final product:

Madmorda took a nontraditional route with her mod this year. Rather than choose a specific console and turn it into a handheld, Madmorda built a controller akin to a Wii U Gamepad that can be used with any console capable of outputting composite video. Madmorda named her creation the Gearshift, based on the fact that the casing for it is an original Sega Gamegear case.

This project is pretty sweet because it allows consoles like the Xbox that can’t be portablized nicely to still be playable on a handheld. Madmorda’s use of a wireless PS2 controller inside means that the Gearshift can be used with any device that has a PS2 controller adapter. This includes the GameCube, the Wii, all Playstation and Xbox consoles, and many others. Of course, the Gearshift features a stunning paint job, because the painting queen leaves no project ugly. Check out her worklog and the video below for more information on this awesome build!

For this year’s contest, Nobble teamed up with sexy, not quite naked cosplayer, Postman to bring us a project that isn’t a portable, but is still awesome nonetheless. The NintenDoom64 is named for BitBuilt’s favorite admin Doom. Oh, and for the Doom game released for N64.

It’s a pretty crazy mod. Nobble and Postman used LEDs, laser etched acrylic, splatter painting, and tons of other techniques to make this mod a reality. In the mood for some more Satan? Check out his worklog here!

Yours truly, GingerOfOz, built a Wii portable titled the Waker of the Wiind, for the Zelda game of my childhood. I chose to focus on aesthetics while trying to still balance features with keeping the internals neat.

It’s my first working Wii portable and I’m really happy with how it turned out. Features include a WiiHUD audio amp, an internal USB drive accessible through micro-usb, and component video. Check out my worklog and the video below to learn more!

Charjame entered his first ever portable into the contest with his Wiisconsin ErgoBoii, another portable reminiscent of portables past, namely in the form of ASCII GameCube controller portables. But rather than destroy a rare and valuable controller for the sake of a portable, Charjame used a combination of frankencasing and 3D printing to create a large, but comfortable portable.

Notable features include original GameCube controls and micro-USB charging . Overall, it’s a pretty solid first portable and we look forward to seeing what Charjame does next!

Last, but not least, is Miceeno, with another one of his stunning N64 portables. This portable is quite unique with his choice of casing material: aluminum. It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a non-plastic portable, and Miceeno’s was a refreshing change.

The internals are really interesting as you can see how Miceeno has structured the entire case to act as a heatsink for the N64. Other features include an Ultra-VGA board for amazingly crisp video, single port charge and play, and hours upon hours of battery life. Check out his worklog to see how it all came together, and watch the video to see it in action!

That’s all the projects we saw in this year’s contest. While they may have lacked some of the luster that the winners had, these projects are still really awesome examples of how people, who may lack years of electronics experience that portablizing veterans have, can still build portables that are awesome in their own right. We’re still about 8 months from the next summer contest, but if you’ve got an old project that needs reviving, then dust it off and fix it up for Ghosts! And of course, a huge thank you once again to everyone who hosted, participated in, and drooled over this year’s contest.

As many who follow the portablizing community are aware, Ben Heck has announced that he is leaving Element 14’s The Ben Heck Show after many years of performing various mods for thousands of viewers to admire. Although the announcement wasn’t unexpected, it still left many people wondering what Element 14 would do to replace the star of the show. Shortly after the official announcement that Ben was leaving the show, Element 14 announced a contest dubbed “Hack Like Heck” with the goal of attracting new talent to star on the show. The basis was simple – build some sort of handheld video game device and make a 12 to 18 minute long video showing off the brainstorming, designing, and construction process of the build. To foster more interest in potential talent, Element 14 upped the ante by offering cash prizes for the top 10 winners with one of these winners being given an episode on the Ben Heck Show. Here on BitBuilt, we know a thing or three about handheld video games, as three members stepped up to take on the competition: painting queen Madmorda, Pokemon fanatic Nobble, and Pigylord ShockSlayer. Each of these competitors took very different approaches to their awesome builds, and the results were stunning to say the least. We’ll let their videos do most of the talking, but here’s a brief overview of each of them.

Nobble’s build was definitely one of a kind with it’s emphasis on having a working projector built into the handheld Raspberry Pi Gameboy. Based on a DMG Gameboy, his colorful creation dazzles the eyes and displays an impressive level of workmanship. Here’s his video where he goes in depth about the build and brainstorming (featuring Fibbef of course):

Madmorda took a path more suited to her artistic inclinations and did her best to recreate a Hoenn Pokedex with a Raspberry Pi as the processing unit. The build features her amazing painting skills, and the final product looks virtually 1:1 with a Hoenn Pokedex. Be sure to check out her video and give her project the love it deserves:

ShockSlayer also competed in the competition, but took a far more advanced approach to his build. We’ll be covering his build more extensively in a future article, but his build featured the first OMEGA trim, extensive use of WiiHUD, along dozens of other awesome things that make it undoubtedly the most feature packed portable of all time. In the meantime, enjoy his awesome video in which he gives a brief overview of all the efforts it took to get the Wii portablized as well as an inside look at the Waverider, his masterpiece of a portable.

To no one’s surprise, all three of these contestants placed in the top ten of the contest and brought home $500 in prize money each! ShockSlayer’s build netted the most votes in the entire contest, but Madmorda and Nobble weren’t too far behind with their efforts.

This contest was a lot of fun to follow and see all of the awesome builds everyone came up with, both inside and outside of BitBuilt. If you want to see what everyone else did, the Maker Video Page on Element 14 has everyone’s projects. A big thanks to everyone who ran the contest and for all of you who took the time to watch everyone’s videos and impact the result of the contest. Element 14 has hinted about future contests much like this one, and it will be exciting to see what people build next!

Categories

BitBuilt is a community website built by the community, for the community. All pictures featured on the website have been copied with the consent of the original author, and or are taken by members of the website. All diagrams are for pure instructional use and are not monetized in any way.